This dissertation proposes a radical reframing of the legitimacy question in public administration by calling into question the status of "the People" as the basis for democratic government. It is grounded in the key texts in the intellectual history of public administration that have concerned themselves with administrative legitimacy, including those of Goodnow, Waldo, Simon, Rohr, Ostrom, Redford, McSwite and Harmon. The work of Deleuze, Foucault, Zizek, Schmitt and Hardt and Negri is also engaged..